CHAPTER XIV

CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE

But being converted to scouting could not at once cure Nora of her dream habits. Being so long alone in school, and having a brain insatiable for creative material, she usually went to bed to think and she went to sleep to dream.

"I never felt so deliciously tired," she murmured. "But I do wonder what ailed Vita."

Presently blue eyes cuddled in their white satin blankets with brown fringe borders (a way Nora had of describing eye lids and lashes), and then the panorama began.

First it was the Scout memory. She, as the bravest Scout that had ever joined a troup, dramatically saved someone from drowning. Next, Nora as the actress in the picture shown at Lenox, performed the daring feat of swinging from the great rock with strikingly better effect than had she whose name graced the program. The third dream installment had to do with something very indistinct but horribly terrifying. It revealed a crawling thing that first crossed the path, then climbed the morning glory vine right up to Nora's window, and now--yes now--it was choking her!

Had she screamed?

She found herself sitting up straight in bed and she felt as if her very curls had straightened out in fright.

There--was a noise! She listened, put her hand out and switched on the light. It was nothing in her room, but seemed somewhere--Yes, there it was again and it surely was up in the attic!

Was that someone moaning?

Dream dizzy still, Nora could form no definite resolve, either to call or to remain quiet. She simply lay fascinated with fright. The noise ceased. Still she lay--listening. Then other sounds penetrated the night. That was feet--shuffling of feet and they seemed just above her head! Quickly Nora reached out again and touched the button that switched off the light. She would rather lay hidden deeply in the bed clothing than be exposed to whatever was prowling in the attic, should it come down the stairs.

Then she thought she heard whispering, but that might have been her excited imagination. She drew the covers closer and with her head buried from sound she could no longer listen, and not possibly hear.

But after, what seemed to the frightened girl, a very long time she ventured to poke her head out again, just as she heard a stealthful step on the stairs.

"Oh!" she gasped aloud. Then "Vita!" she called faintly.

"Yes, I come. Sh-s-!"

Nora had not expected to hear that voice. She merely called Vita because she did not want to call Cousin Ted, and she felt the intruder was dangerously near. But there was Vita!

"What is it? You have bad dream?" asked the maid in a whisper, standing now beside the bed.

"No, it was no dream." Nora's voice was not very low, in fact she was angry. "I did hear things and there's no use telling me it was the wind. It wasn't," she snapped.

"Sh-s-!" again Vita warned. "It is no good to wake cousins. I was up the stairs for that old window. It slam--you hear it?"

"What could slam a window tonight?"

"I do-no!" in the way foreigners have of not understanding when ignorance is more convenient. "I must go to bed now. You all right?"

"Say Vita!" charged Nora. "If you don't tell me the truth I'll--I'll--just shout!"

"No, not too much noise," coaxed the big woman, who in her night robe looked like a masquerade figure. "What do you want I should get you?"

"Nothing. I don't want anything but for you to tell me who is up in that attic!" demanded Nora sharply.

"Me--Vittoria, is up attic."

"Who was with you?"

"Cap."

"Where is he now?"

"He go down--back way."

"Now Vita--" Nora stopped. She was baffled. This woman could confuse her so and then walk off demurely, just as she had done that other night. Finally Nora began again:

"All right, Vita, but you just listen." She was shaking a small finger toward the face with the black flashing eyes. "If you don't tell me all about your secret I shall tell Uncle Jerry. Now do you understand?"

"Secret? What is 'secret'?"

"The thing up in the attic is a secret," persisted Nora, although she feared her voice might disturb the others now.

"That thing big Cap. He always at night sniff so much," said Vita. "Now, I go to bed," she spoke this very emphatically. "I go to bed and you go to sleep."

"All right, go," ordered Nora. "And don't you dare go up in that attic again tonight. I was just having the most----"

But her audience had vanished and the house was empty, so to speak, so why orate or harangue?

All sleep and its delightful attributes had flown. Nora was so wide awake she felt she would never sleep again, and worse still, she was angry. What did that old Vita mean by her attic tricks? If it were she who was up there why did she moan? And if it were something else why did the woman try to conceal it?

"Now, I have a Scout duty," Nora promised herself. "I must fathom that mystery and protect Cousin Theodora and Cousin Gerald from that unscrupulous woman." Visions of crimes hidden in the attic, memory of her own incarceration there when the trap door, as she now regarded the door with the spring lock snapped shut, filtered through her excited brain, and when she remembered how she had almost died up there, and how it might have been years before her skeleton would have been discovered, just as so many others had fared on secret attic trips, it did seem to Nora that she should arise at once and immediately start her investigations. Humor and tragedy hopelessly mixed.

"But it's so late," she figured out, "and would it be fair to wake Cousin Ted when she is so tired and after her taking me to that beautiful picture?"

Convincing herself that this was why she did not immediately begin her brave Scout work, she once more attempted to quiet her nerves by thinking of all the sheep Miss Baily had recommended to skip over fences and lull one to sleep.

But sleep was far out of the reach of frisky sheep, and Nora lay there thinking of so many things, her head threatened to ache and a miserable day promised to dawn upon her if she did not soon succumb.

"Perhaps I wronged poor Vita. There may not have been anything wicked in the attic after all," she soothed herself. "Why couldn't she go up there if she wanted to? And maybe she stubbed her toe."

It was not very consoling but the best Nora could work up in the way of consolation. One thing certain, Vita was honorable. She was a trusted servant, and in the short time Nora had been at the Nest, many small favors, peculiar to good cooks, had come Nora's way through Vita's intervention.

Such happy thoughts finally dispelled the other unfriendly mental visitors, and when Vita stole past the door again and looked in through the darkness, all she heard was the even breathing of little Nora Blair, who might or might not have been dreaming of horrible attic noises.

The day brings wisdom, and when Nora again dressed in the borrowed khaki suit (she had suddenly taken a dislike to her own fancy dresses), the glorious sunshine of the bright summer morning mocked the terrors of the night.

A step in the hall. "I bring your fruit," said Vita kindly through the open door; and there she stood with a small dish of such delicious berries to be eaten off stems by hand--surely Nora had wronged this kind, tender-hearted foreigner.

Nora was somewhat conscience stricken as she accepted the peace offering. "Oh, thank you, Vita," she exclaimed. "I was just coming down."

"But the Jerries are out early and you no need hurry," explained Vita. "I make nice breakfast when you come."

"Cousin Ted gone out?" asked Nora.

"Yes, she say you stay home, not go after them, they must 'bob swamp.'"

"Bob swamp? Oh, you mean use the plumb-bob in the swamp. I understand, Vita." It was really remarkable how well both understood today and how dense both had been last night. "Very well, I'll eat my fruit here by the window, and later try your lovely biscuits," said Nora, with a smile rarely used outside the family.

The housemaid shuffled off. Looking after her, Nora wondered.

"I do believe she is trying to keep on good terms with me for something--something queer," she decided. "Certainly she is afraid I will tell Cousin Ted about the attic business." She paused with a big red strawberry half way to her lips. "Well, I have a secret, anyhow," she decided, "and I like Alma, she makes me think of myself--she is sort of shy and sensitive. Perhaps I shall make her my confidante."

Of all the Scouts Alma seemed most congenial, and having a real secret was the first definite step in Nora's summer career. But are secrets wise and are they safe to carry around in so big and open a place as Rocky Ledge?